


The Abandoned

by lilac_summers



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2888129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilac_summers/pseuds/lilac_summers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have both waited so very long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Abandoned

**Author's Note:**

> Originally meant as a stand-alone, I ended up writing a follow up chapter. I've always had a soft spot for Jack, and one of my biggest pet peeves was how they made it a "joke" that even Jack -- who flirts with everyone and everything -- would not find Donna attractive. Pshaw!

Jack runs into her in London during the annual "the world is ending" calamity. She's in the streets, helping the rescue efforts by leading dazed, broken people to safety. And even among the masses of people milling the cracked streets she stands out because:

Her hair is as fiery red as always.  
She is looking mighty fine for a person who would be hitting the 150th year mark.  
When she catches his eye, she calls him "Jack" — and she does not burn.

Later, she invites him to her flat which has, by some miracle, escaped damage. It's a cozy nest, furnished with eclectic pieces from around the world. It's all hers, she tells him, bought with the funds which she won in a lottery, money still tucked safely into bank accounts which continue to garner interest.

He asks delicately about Shawn. He's dead, of course, by now. But did they not spend the money together as he grew old? Weren't there questions as she stopped aging?

But it seems the marriage hadn't lasted more than a couple of years, before the light in her head burned clear and she remembered. Remembered and grew an extra heart.

She shrugs her shoulders and says it's just as well that it didn't last. She wouldn't have wanted to see her husband grow old and frail. She jokes that she guesses she inherited that particular issue from the Doctor, along with a slew of information that has finally found peace in her brain.

They laugh, and they drink, and they spend the night in boisterous reminiscence.

And thus begins an unlikely friendship: two people frozen in time, alone in a world where all they love dies around them, utterly forgotten and left behind on Earth.

The only difference is that Jack knows the Doctor would come back for her if he knew — whereas he's chosen to abandon Jack.

After a while it seems only natural to begin sleeping together. Neither one of them wants anything more complicated than friendship with benefits, a welcome addition to the easy companionship they've established. Jack makes Donna laugh, and Donna lets Jack know when he's being a dangerous idiot. They work well together.

They work  _best_  together in bed. They lose themselves in the physical and they can forget, for a little while, all the things they can't have.

Time passes and more and more when they're together her eyes grow hazy, as if she were watching far-off galaxies. Jack cups her soft, flushed cheek and always says, "Stay with me, Donna. Stay." Her blue eyes refocus, their golden centers fixed on him, before she smiles and wraps her legs around him, struggling to claw back from wherever the bright energy in her head takes her. And little by little he realizes that, wanting to or not, he is in love.

In love with  _her_ , not with the shadow of the Doctor in her brain, but with Donna Noble. Who is funny and bold, shy and kind, all at once. He loves her.

He knows it won't last forever. She may care for him in her own way, but they both know she's waiting for a blue box. And, remembering a slim Doctor who looked upon her as his compass, Jack knows that somewhere in the vast universe is a lonely man within that blue box, still waiting for her.

"Why don't you call him? Let him know?" he finally asks her one day as they walk hand in hand down a cold winter street. Her gaze has turned to the sky again, and it's the only way he can think of to draw her back.

"It isn't time yet," she says simply, that thoughtful wrinkle between otherwise ageless eyes.

"How do you know?"

"I just do," she responds quietly, with all the certainty of a person who has eternity in front of them, even if each second is torture.

Jack recognizes that certainty well enough, as he faces it daily. The certainty that one day she will leave him, and that neither of the two people who could stay with him forever are meant do do so.

So at night he loses himself in the softness of her thighs, the coolness of her breath, the surety of her arms. He doesn't have forever with her - neither his nor her type of forever - but he has her for right now. Before the universe and its constant traveler find her once again.

* * *

part 1 of 2


	2. The Found

It comes out of nowhere and yet it's not a surprise. Not even a little.

Donna slips from the bed, still warm and rumpled, and Jack's arm slides from her waist. He wasn't asleep, but he likes to close his eyes and absorb the peace of her company over the nighttime hours. So when he feels her move he opens his eyes and sees she's already slinging a thin robe over herself, her movements sure and unhurried as a very distinctive sound fades into the night.

The TARDIS.

Something clenches in Jack's chest, equal parts joy and grief. They've waited so long. _And yet it could have never been long enough._

He's going to lose Donna tonight.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, drawing trousers on with measured slowness, and then he pads out of the flat.

Donna is standing under a streetlamp, arms folded under her breasts, head tilted to the side.

When the TARDIS doors open, a man neither of them recognizes steps out. He's young- _ish_ , at that indecipherable age some people seem to keep where a person can either be a weathered twenty-something or a very well-kept forty. And, well... _alluring_ might be a better descriptor than handsome. But Jack knows it's the Doctor in the feeling of centuries that clings to the man, regardless of the features or the age upon his face.

The Doctor catches sight of Donna and freezes, panicked as an animal trapped by oncoming headlights. Several emotions crowd the unknown face - shock, joy, fear, pain- before he backs up slowly into the TARDIS and quietly shuts the door, as if perhaps by not making any sudden moves Donna may not notice the appearance of a big blue box right in front of her.

Donna huffs; Jack can already imagine her rolling her eyes, although all he sees is the amused set of her shoulders.

The TARDIS doors are flung open again, suddenly this time, with no regard for the loud, indignant creak of wood as they bang against the sides.

"It's 2260," the Doctor says in a rich, deep voice.

"Yehhhhp," Donna replies, drawing out the vowel.

"Its 2260," he repeats, eyes wide, "which means you shouldn't be here."

"It's like you're a regular Sherlock - nothing gets by you," deadpans Donna.

"No, but, Donna," the Doctor says again. "You don't understand. You're...you...you shouldn't..."

And then that face crumples, all pretense of youth shed aside as lines (Jack would call them laugh lines, but he knows better) appear 'round the Doctor's eyes, chin wobbling dangerously. The Doctor brings a hand to his mouth and just stares, silent tears dripping down his cheeks.

Donna makes a sort of aborted movement, as if she would go to him, but holds back.

The Doctor has no such restraint, and in a handful of long strides he reaches her. His arms wrap around her tight, engulfing her as he curves over her shorter frame.

Donna wiggles, her arms trapped. Jack watches her turn her head and whisper something in the Doctor's ear. The Doctor reluctantly loosens his hold, preparing to step back. But that's not what Donna wants and she tugs him back close, arms wrapping over his shoulders properly so she can hug back.

Over Donna's shoulder, Jack watches the Doctor's shocked face, eyes bright and unseeing, until they slide shut with something like relief. As if he finally believes that this is real.

And Jack is overjoyed for them, and miserable.

Finally drawing back, the Doctor clutches Donna's shoulders, fingers white with the force of his desperate grip. "I...I have so much to tell you. So much to show you! Oh, Donna, the TARDIS is going to love having you back. You'll-" the Doctor falters, a sudden thought occurring to him.

Jack watches the Doctor steel himself for the question that could - it only occurs to the Doctor now - result in a denial. The Doctor clears his throat roughly, continuing, "Of course, assuming you want to come back with me."

Donna isn't going to say no, Jack knows. But it gives him a bit of petty joy to watch this Doctor squirm. By the set of the man's shoulders, he wouldn't be surprised if the Doctor is planning some "emergency" that requires Donna's assistance, regardless of her answer.

But Donna doesn't leave him unsure for long. "Just let me grab something!" she says, voice as bright and excited as the first time she was invited along. She pirouettes and marches back to where Jack stands, hidden by the shadows.

Jack startles, not having realized that Donna knew he was there.

She grabs Jack's hand and marches him up to the Doctor.

The Doctor blinks in surprise. He truly had no idea Jack was standing there; his eyes had only been for Donna.

"Jack..."

"My something," corrects Donna, rubbing her thumb over Jack's knuckles to indicate she means no disrespect. Then she kisses the mute Doctor on the cheek, takes his hand and leads them both into the TARDIS.

And so a new, beautiful part of Jack's life begins. One he never dared hoped for. 

* * *

They travel to far-off stars. Both Jack and the Doctor take pains to protect their Donna - unwilling to risk finding out if she has any regenerations in her. Jack loses track of how many times he dies in her (and the Doctor's - though they don't speak of it) place, the Doctor and he in tacit agreement that her safety comes first.

She always responds to such displays with equal parts exasperation, fear and relief, holding them close to her hearts, pounding scared but sure beneath their heads.

Until, after hundreds of years together, they travel to a tiny colony on the edge of a newly-discovered galaxy. It's all gray sand and turquoise waters and reminds Jack poignantly of Boe. More poignant is the reminder of Ianto, reflected in the clear eyes of a young man who greets them.

He falls in love. A different kind of love, the kind that yearns for children and stability after his very long life. Different than the kind of love he finds in Donna's warm arms and the Doctor's willingness to share her embrace. Donna sees it grow in him, and takes his face between her hands to kiss him sweetly before she says, "Go. Build us a family. Call us when the children are born."

He and his lover watch the two Time Lords leave. Hand-in-hand as always, the Doctor gives him a final wink and calls "Name one after me!" from the door as the TARDIS begins to disappear, and through his tears Jack has to laugh as he sees a feminine hand reach out and yank the Doctor back inside.

Thousands of years pass. The Doctor (in a handful of various faces) and Donna stop by when they can to visit his expanding family. There's a little red-haired girl in there that he names Donna, and he watches as Donna's soft eyes fill with emotion.

He doesn't name any of the boys "The Doctor," as much as the Doctor pleads. He does name one John, and the Doctor's chest puffs out with pride. It's close enough!

And so now here he is. His family is spread throughout the stars. He is old now, so very, very old. Through the water of his life-support device Jack watches a slim, young, wild-haired Doctor prance around with his lovely Martha. Oh, dear Martha! It's been so long.

The Doctor's eyes are full of forced cheer. This is a Doctor fresh from the Time War. This is a Doctor who doesn't know it can get better, and Jack smiles at the knowledge of everything in store for him.

"You are not alone," he tells this Doctor, watching as the Doctor's face fills with confusion and hope. He knows the Doctor in pin-stripes will misunderstand, will think Jack refers to the Master. But Jack doesn't mean the Master, and he holds this knowledge close to his heart as his eyes shut for the last and final time.

Blessed darkness, at long last.

After the Doctor and Martha leave and Novice Hame heads out to make sense of her new world, the whirl of a TARDIS echoes through the room.

A man and a woman - both beautifully redheaded, for once - walk up hand-in-hand to the large container holding the Face of Boe. He looks asleep and peaceful. The man wraps an arm tight around the woman, drawing her close to his side, as he lays a hand on the container. The TARDIS rematerializes around the three, and then disappears.

* * *

_Fin_


End file.
